Laura Haapio-Kirk
I am a PhD researcher at UCL Anthropology studying smartphones and ageing in Japan, and a Leach fellow in public anthropology at the Royal Anthropological Institute.
www.twitter.com/LauraLHK
Location London
Activity
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to karen m
Very interesting how this mindfulness app was common among the people you spoke with. Mindfulness was already very popular in the UK, but during the pandemic I have noticed it has been recommended even more widely to combat anxiety and stress. It's heartening to know that the same device that people often blame for being distracting and consuming attention can...
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Deana S
Thank you for your very succinct description of 'smart from below'! Glad to know you have found the concept interesting and convincing.
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great! glad to know it was helpful for you :)
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Really glad you have enjoyed the course Anne! And interesting that it is making you consider getting a smartphone. Hopefully the costs will continue to decrease around the world so that everyone who wants one will be able to access a smartphone.
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Renate R
thank you for taking part!
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Winnet Dyke
thank you so much for joining, glad you enjoyed it!
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Thanks for your comment Peter. I found the use of emoji and stickers (large format emoji) very interesting during my research in Japan! Sending visual messages was quite distinctive of the way that older people used their phones. Often people said that they used emoji to make communication warmer, and more multi-layered like face-to-face contact. Often they...
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Very interesting how you combine all your tracking in one big spreadsheet, including writing productivity! Maybe I need to give this a try :) I wonder if there is any correlation between physical activity and productivity...
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Anyone is welcome to join the departmental seminars which happen regularly in term time. They are free, and at least during the pandemic, are all streamed online. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology/news-and-events/seminar-series
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Interesting to hear of the distinction in the definition of 'health anthropology' in Brazil - that sounds more inclusive.
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Thanks for your comment Michael, and for sharing the ways in which the pandemic has influenced your usage of digital devices for health. It will be very interesting to study the long-term impact of the pandemic on technology use.
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@WinnetDyke You can read the book for free here: https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/171335 but of course if you use a kindle then do go ahead with the Amazon link. Thanks for reading!
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Very interesting comment about 'old' as referring to people who you don't know. It could be that the term 'old' is perhaps inherently othering in its generally negative inflections, therefore only applicable to 'others'.
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This is a very good point - the pandemic has put a huge emphasis on chronological age categories, despite the fact that people vary greatly within age groups in terms of fitness.
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Thanks for your comment Michael! Wonderful you did the Kumano Kodo. I visited Koyasan and stayed in a temple there. Was a wonderful experience, but I am sure much more rewarding as an actual pilgrim! Your point about being open to learning and new ideas as central to 'staying young at heart' was key for many of the people I researched with in Japan. I remember...
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yes exactly this - in my fieldsite in Japan it was not rare for women to be staring families in their forties. Key moments of the life course for both younger and older people are shifting, along with life expectancy itself, therefore assumptions about what terms like 'middle-aged' mean are also changing.
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You're right, it's pretty funny! In Japan people would often keep their old feature phones to make phone calls because it was cheaper than using their smartphones which they kept for using the internet and messaging. It's really interesting to see the different reasons people have for avoiding using the 'phone' in their smartphone!
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Thank you so much for downloading our book, and happy you can access it on your Kindle through Amazon even if that does mean paying for it!
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Stas S
That's a really interesting parallel, thanks for your comment!
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Steve Bamlett
Really great to hear, thanks Steve!
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Hi Vinaya, great to have you on the course., I am really interested to hear more about your research on older people during the pandemic. I'm very glad that you're interested in the Japanese fieldsite which is where I worked. In Japan there is also a mixed reaction to smartphones as they are gradually adopted by older people. I found that during the pandemic...
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Ying-Tzu Chou
This is really fascinating Ying-Tzu! Paying attention to the words that people use in the discourse surrounding both the pandemic and technology use can be helpful to understand how wider cultural contexts shape the way we think about things. In my fieldsite of Japan, during coronavirus the emphasis has been on 'self-restraint', highlighting the importance...
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Martin Black
Hi Martin, so glad to have you on the course! I am really fascinated to hear more about your experience in encouraging technology use among older people in the early days of the internet. I hope you enjoy the course.
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Hi Fajana, it will be really interesting to hear your perspective as this is a very important area not only for older technology users but for everyone.
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
The smartphone has certainly come into its own during lockdown, Winnet! And Noreen, it will be interesting to hear your perspective as a non-smartphone user. As for the sellotape, my iPhone currently has some on the screen over a crack in the glass... I guess simple fixes like sellotape never get old despite the changing technology!
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@flyingpigtravelingbugC Great to have you here! Will be interesting to see if your experience in China matches with what our researchers found.
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Yes anthropologists study just about everything to do with humans!
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Thanks Margaret, it will be really interesting to hear your opinion as the course progresses as someone with an 'outsider' perspective.
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Thank you for sharing this fable with us Huixiu, how interesting! And I wholeheartedly agree, although unfortunately it seems rare that disciplines communicate well with each other.
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Interesting point about generational use of social media relating to confidence with a platform and the presence, or not, of community. I would agree, except that certain platforms such as twitter are perhaps places where you don't necessarily need to already be part of a community in order to interact. Communities temporarily coalesce around hashtags and...
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Welcome Jonathan! You might be particularly interested in Week 4 which looks at social media and education. Looking forward to hearing your perspective on this topic.
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It perhaps could also be that Chinese social media remains an enigma to non-Chinese speaking populations, simply due to the language barrier.
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Thanks Hilary - great point! For some people, the ideal is to not 'only' be a mother but also their daughter's best friend. Danny wrote about the consequences of social media for shifting relational terms in this recent article: https://www.haujournal.org/index.php/hau/article/view/hau7.1.025/2725
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Thanks for the great comment Michele! I think that the researchers would agree that social media is not new - the technology has just changed, and will keep evolving. Perhaps the distinguishing feature of social media today is that an individual can now broadcast to as large (or small) a group as they want. Whereas before the ability to broadcast information...
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Dana Allen-Greil
Thanks for the question Dana - for some fieldsites the researchers used pseudonyms as a way to protect the anonymity of their informants.
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Great point Melanie. Later on in the course you'll certainly come across this. For example in the Chile fieldsite we found that people used Instagram during the aftermath of an earthquake to draw attention to a lack of care from the government experienced by this particular region. However the situation in places where state censorship operates, such as China,...
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Welcome Anna! It will be interesting to see if your distinction between the 'virtual' and the 'real' softens during the course. Great reason to want to learn more about the topic, hope you enjoy!
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this is really inspiring, and your English is excellent. I admire your motivation to learn!
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Laura Haapio-Kirk made a comment
behaviour change, personalised, networked
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Laura Haapio-Kirk made a comment
I work in the department of Anthropology at UCL and I'm developing a project on ageing and mHealth. I'm keen to learn about processes of participatory design, and to see how cultural contextual knowledge (such as provided by anthropologists) can help the design process.
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It's a beautiful video - you can see more of her paintings here: http://www.visualethnographyxy.co.uk/
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Well said!
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
Thanks for your comment Georgia. You're right that privacy is a concern for a lot of people, especially in West. However as you'll see in our industrial Chinese fieldsite, where people were living in very close proximity to each other, social media creates a space where people can experience 'privacy' for the first time.
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Yes, and added to that is the fact that often privacy settings are obscure and not well-designed. People often don't know how to control who sees what on their social media profiles. However, I do think that people still have a sense of communicating to different groups via different social media channels, and in that way scaling their sociality.
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to jim scott
You're right, it's constantly evolving through use and depending on context.
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Sal B
That's what we like to hear!
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Janet M
Thanks for your comment Janet! You raise an interesting point - I think anthropologists tend to consider online communication as being just as 'real' as offline, and as you'll see in this course perhaps even more 'real' for some people. Hope you enjoy the next five weeks!
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Very pleased to hear you enjoyed interacting with other leaners on this run of the course. Fingers crossed we will have an equally engaged bunch of people on the next one.
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Rebecca T
Really wonderful to hear! Thanks for the feedback and good luck with your further studies.
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Paul Giles
I'm glad to hear that the course was engaging even though you do not have direct experience of social media.
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Thanks for sharing this experience with us Valerie - fascinating!
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Richard Welch
Thanks for the kind comment Richard. The long-term nature of anthropological fieldwork is vital for developing deep relationships, enabling data that goes beyond surveys and statistics.
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I'm really pleased that this course has provided food for thought Jodi. You're absolutely right, social media is evolving at a rapid rate and since our fieldwork was mostly conducted over two years ago now, thing already might have changed a considerable amount. However we are pleased to be able to provide a snapshot of how things were when we were there and...
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This is interesting Susie, why do you think this is the case? Do you feel that your views generally align with your friends or have you ever challenged someone's view on social media?
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Thanks for your comment Silvia. I do agree that social media can increase a persons's sense of participation and agency in politics. But I have been thinking lately that this doesn't necessarily then translate into actual political action.
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Thanks for your comment Siddiqah. I'm really glad that this short video has challenged some of your assumptions about South India. You might be interested to listen to this podcast where Shriram, our Indian researcher, talks about conducting his fieldwork: https://soundcloud.com/look-and-listen-anthropology/why-we-post-your-questions-answered
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Glad you enjoyed this portrait of some of our Indian research participants and interesting that you find a symmetry in your own thoughts about Facebook!
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I like you analogy between the bazaar and Facebook :) I think you're on to something there, especially now that Facebook are orienting themselves towards being a marketplace.
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Hi Susie, you might be interested in listening to this podcast where we talk about why we chose these fieldsites: https://soundcloud.com/look-and-listen-anthropology/why-we-post-your-questions-answered
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Thanks for your questions Thato! We have just created a podcast that answers some of these :) https://soundcloud.com/look-and-listen-anthropology/the-anthropology-of-social-media-visual-communication
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Hi Phil, thank you for taking the time to participate in the course and share your personal experiences with us. We are very glad to have you here and read your contributions. Your point that knowing someone has been following your journey on Facebook actually helps with your offline interactions is really interesting. Even if someone is just following your...
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Great to hear! Thanks for the feedback. Enjoy the course :)
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Welcome! Thanks for your enthusiasm, hope you enjoy the course!
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Lacy Anderson
Thank you Lacy, that would be wonderful!
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Georgia Fancett
Thank you for sharing your learning highlights Georgia. That's exactly the value of anthropology - we take often banal, overlooked phenomena and scrutinise them to understand what's really going on. Nothing is frivolous to an anthropologist!
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Angela Wessels
Thanks Angela! You might want to follow us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/whywepost/) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/UCLWhyWePost) to get the latest updates on the project.
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Laura Abecasis
Why don't you take a look at our series of books, with more to be released over the coming year! http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/why-we-post
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Corina Enache
Glad to hear that the practical element of the course was useful and interesting, especially to someone who is already involved in anthropological fieldwork. Thanks for sharing!
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Cassy van Eeden
Perfectly encapsulated! So pleased you enjoyed the course :)
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So pleased to hear that Michael! If you don't want to stop you can take a look at our free online books, with more to be released over the coming year http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/why-we-post
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I think this story is one we can all connect with in some ways, which is why it is so powerful and touching. The degree of escapism for these factory workers is at an extreme end of the scale, highlighting the false dichotomy between 'real life' vs online life.
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That's good that SM helped you to build a social network offline in your new city. Shows how the offline and online are so interchangeable these days.
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Really fascinating point about social media access being a marker of urbanisation where you are - thanks for sharing!
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Nicely said!
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Thanks for sharing Ivy. Which country are you in? Interesting that social media is useful in a peer-to-peer commercial context for people where you are, just like in our Chinese and Chilean fieldsites. You might be interested in this discovery about commerce on our website:...
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Eliana Gilio
Yes you will continue to have access to the entire course once it is over. You will still be able to comment and give your opinion then, but it's likely that you will have fewer replies.
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Romi Bobkova
Very pleased to hear this Romi! You can find out more about our project and findings from our website www.ucl.ac.uk/why-we-post
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Laura Haapio-Kirk made a comment
You might be interested in our latest blog post from Daniel Miller which addresses recent political events: http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/global-social-media/2016/06/27/social-media-and-brexit/
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Chris Foster
Glad you're finding our course relevant! You might be interested in our latest blog post which addresses recent events http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/global-social-media/2016/06/27/social-media-and-brexit/
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Yes exactly, the point in anthropology is to see the effect that culture has on the phenomena we study :)
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Hi Priyanka, you might enjoy listening to our podcast about our experiences of conducting fieldwork: https://soundcloud.com/look-and-listen-anthropology/why-we-post-your-questions-answered
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We wanted to include a range of all ages in our fieldsites.
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Hi Cynthia, you might enjoy listening to our podcast about our experiences of conducting fieldwork: https://soundcloud.com/look-and-listen-anthropology/why-we-post-your-questions-answered
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Yes we tried to sample a range of people from a variety of educational backgrounds. We actually found that social media was a crucial form of communication and education for people with low literacy in our South India and North Brazil fieldsites.
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to Leila Kigha
You can already read the first four online here: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/why-we-post
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Hi Louise, you might find this podcast interesting where we discuss recruitment of participants and fieldwork experiences: https://soundcloud.com/look-and-listen-anthropology/why-we-post-your-questions-answered
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Many thanks Janice! You can follow the team's progress on our Facbook page: https://www.facebook.com/whywepost/. We are publishing a series of free open access books over the coming year, with the first 4 already out!
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This is what we found repeatedly, that experiences and consequences of social media were different everywhere we looked.
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Laura Haapio-Kirk replied to malcolm m
Glad you're still here!
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Thanks for your comment Howard. We agree that social media has produced a new form of literacy based on visual communication which we will explore later in the week.
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You're right, they were all true in some way. Thanks for sharing your thought process with us.
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Thanks Luisa, this is a really interesting observation! Are you saying that you feel that we have lost some of our ability for oral communication, or that it is just different now?
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Hi Ruben, thanks for your comment. You're right, it is difficult to summarise the nature of social media in one sentence! We wanted to get people thinking about their own assumptions about the topic, since we then go on to show during the course that our experiences of social media are culturally construed.
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Great comment Bobby! Your point about decreasing levels of personal privacy is an interesting one, and you might like to know that we go into more depth about implications for privacy in Week 4.
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It will be interesting to hear how this course and the anthropological perspective it presents differs from the Southhampton course. Hope you get a lot from our course!
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Thanks Rick, we're pleased to hear you appreciate the structure of the course! Hope you find it interesting.
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Great to have you here Yoko! As anthropologists we would be waring of judging social media as being inherently 'good' or 'bad' - rather we try to understand the uses and consequences of social media in each specific location where we worked. While some of our informants have expressed anxieties about social media, rather than making moral assumptions about the...
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Welcome Laura, from a fellow Laura. Glad to have you on board.
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Hi Cezary, thanks for joining us! We do indeed have a section on our UK fieldsite - find it from step 1.13 onwards in this first week :)
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Thank you for sharing Tyrone, great to have your perspective!
